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Contrasting INSERT INTO and SELECT INTO

Chad Callihan embraces the power of AND:

Data can be inserted into one temp table from another a couple of ways. There is the INSERT INTO option and the SELECT INTO option.

Are you devoted to one option over the other? Maybe you’re used to one and never experimented with the other. Let’s test each and compare performance to find out which is more efficient.

Both of these are useful, though Chad does mention a performance improvement with SELECT INTO. I tend to prefer INSERT INTO for “structured” scenarios because it lets me define the shape of the output table. When I don’t care what the shape is—for example, when I just need some data one time to perform an analysis—then I prefer SELECT INTO for its simplicity.